FAQ
What steps should I take to become a full time writer? I’m graduating uni soon & plan to take a year off to write and then I’ll get qualified in teaching the year after but I really hope I can earn a living through my writing. The future scares me :(
Apr 01, 2015
This is a tough question because no two writers follow the same path to publication or to full-time writer-dom. And there are so many sub-categories to this answer, so I’m just going to give the broad strokes here. Feel free to follow up with specifics if I don’t address your question! Warning: this is also really long. I apologize in advance. But it’s a BIG question. More under the cut, to spare people just scrolling past from getting a huge block of text. 😉
READ ON FOR ADVICE ON BECOMING A FULL TIME WRITER…
The first thing you should know is that very few writers (statistically speaking) support themselves entirely on their writing work as full-time writers. Many very successful authors I know have other jobs and/or spouses to support the writing career, especially because being a self-employed artist comes with zero benefits of the financial kind.
Someone out there is going to disagree with me, I’m sure, but I strongly believe that you should never, ever become an artist of any kind for the money. For one thing, it’s way too easy to be disappointed if you never make it big, and for that disappointment to taint your love of creating art. I always tell people to ask themselves this question: If I never get paid a dime for my work, and I knew RIGHT NOW that I’d never get paid a dime for it, would I still do it? It’s okay for the answer to that question to be no! But it’s something worth knowing about yourself and your work, so that you can continue to reevaluate your goals as you move forward.
Now, I’m NOT telling all this to scare you. Far from it. I love being a writer, and I wouldn’t exchange it for any other job in the world. I’m also not trying to discourage you. But others WILL try to discourage you (every single writer out there can tell you about some naysayer who told him or her to study accounting instead) so I’m just laying out the realities so you’ll be prepared when others throw them at you.
SO. First of all, be prepared to work another job while you write (which it sounds like you are: teaching!). You may have to spend many years cramming your writing into lunch breaks and late night or early morning sessions. This can, strangely, help productivity. If you know you’ve only got an hour to write before you’ve got to go back to your job, you’ll end up writing like the wind.
Secondly, if you can afford to take a year to write before starting at another job, that’s fantastic. SEIZE THAT OPPORTUNITY, because it’s invaluable. Make the most of it. Just don’t bank on having a steady writing income by the time the year’s up. While it might happen, there’s no guarantee, so be prepared for what you’ll do if you’re not published by then.
Some advice on what to do to prepare for being a professional writer:
- Read a lot. And not just for entertainment, though I’m a firm believer that life is short, so read what you want. 😉 But read critically. If you read something you really love, go back and try to figure out how the author did what he or she did. What about this character made you fall in love? What about that plot twist made it so satisfying?
- Write a lot. A lot of people disparage the idea of writing every day. I used to be one of them. I also never finished a novel until I tried it, and that experience made me a convert. But whatever it is, come up with a system for making yourself write regularly. The point is to start making the conversion in your head from “hobby” to “job.” This doesn’t mean it has to stop being fun, though your relationship with writing may change, which is okay.
- Share your work. Find someone to read your work critically. There are a lot of great blog posts out there about how to find a critique partner, so I won’t go into it here. But getting used to both sharing your work and receiving both positive and negative feedback on it is invaluable. It gets easier the more you do it. It never gets EASY (at least it hasn’t for me!) but it gets easier.
- Study the business. Follow writers on social media. Follow their agents. Follow their publishers. Read articles about how to get published, and read them from a variety of sources, because there are differing opinions that are all still valid. Read Publisher’s Marketplace and get a feel for what sort of books are selling right now, and how they’re pitched. When I began writing my first full novel (which ended up being Skylark) I started studying how one gets published, entirely via the internet. It helped motivate me to keep going, and by the time I’d finished writing the novel, I knew my plan of action when it came to querying agents.
- And yes. Get an agent. Some writers do work without them, but personally, I am so grateful for mine and absolutely believe it’s worth the 15% commission. Not only do I think I would’ve struggled to get published at all without one, I KNOW I wouldn’t be making enough money to be full-time. All that aside, agents handle so much of the day-to-day junk that comes with writing—dealing with your publisher, fighting your fights for you, keeping track of income for tax purposes, selling to foreign publishers you’ve never even heard of, and a million other things. If you want to be traditionally published (as opposed to self-published) get an agent.
- Set goals you can control. Don’t fall into the trap of “If I can just ________, I’ll be happy.” Because that bar keeps moving. You might think that getting an agent will make you happy, but then once you get one, you realize that now you’ve got to go on submission to publishers. Then it might be just selling your book that’ll make you happy, but then you have to see how it actually does in the market. Getting fans and followers. Selling another book. Getting to go on tour. Getting good critical reviews. Hitting various bestseller lists. Selling movie rights. These are all things over which you have next to no control, and if you make these things your goals, you’re going to be disappointed sooner or later. They can be dreams (because you should never stop dreaming) but don’t make them goals you HAVE to achieve to find satisfaction in your work. Set long term goals like “I’m going to finish my novel this year” and short term goals like “each week I’m going to research one new agent.” The rest will happen, or not happen, by itself.
The future IS scary. Trust me, it doesn’t stop being scary as far as I know. And if you’re looking for security, a career as a writer is not likely to provide a fear-free life. But in my experience, facing that fear gets easier with time. The first few years after publication are fraught with ups and downs as the reality of the business sets in. I’m still afraid, all the time, that my own career is a soap bubble dream that’ll burst if I look at it too hard. But fear doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I choose consciously to make that fear a positive, because it motivates me. (Sometimes I’m better at this conscious choice than other times.) I work hard because I love my work and don’t ever want it taken away from me, because what on earth else would I do for a living? I use my fear to drive me.
So it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to acknowledge that you’re scared. Just don’t let your fear immobilize you. Bravery is going ahead despite being afraid, and art, ANY kind of art, is bravery. Every single one of us was scared too. You’re going to pour your heart onto a page and then ask someone you’ve never met to love it. It’s scary. But you can do it.
You can do it.
Anonymous, ask, author life, blog, full-time writer, publishing industry, writing advice, writing tips
Ask A Question (#5): What part of the writing process do you find most difficult?
Apr 22, 2013
Katelyn L. asked, “What part of the writing process do you find most difficult? For example, world building, character developments, editing, etc.”
Each aspect of writing has its challenges for me, and they crop up unexpectedly. I might be as familiar with a given character as I am with my own family, and one day just suddenly struggle to get through a scene with her. Or I might just be ripping along at a good pace and then suddenly hit a huge plot hole I never saw coming and sit there for four hours trying to figure out how that happened. Maybe I shouldn’t admit this, but for me, it’s not that any one thing has a tendency to go wrong… it’s that anything could go wrong at any time!
I actually did used to really struggle with action scenes, because I was afraid of committing to them and then not really pulling them off. Sometimes my short stories would read like a classic Greek play, where all this dialogue and character building would happen “on stage” and then the real action would sort of happen off-camera and we’d be watching the characters dealing with the aftermath. It became such a habit that I still occasionally catch myself doing it–not because I can’t or even don’t want to write the action scene, but because I was so used to doing things that way for so long. (Read more…)
Ask A Question (#4): What inspired you to write SKYLARK?
Apr 19, 2013
Mary O. and Bookwyrm16 both asked, “What inspired you to write SKYLARK?”
What a great question—inspiration is so hard to pinpoint! For me it comes from everything around me, from the people I talk to to the books I read, the music I hear, the movies I see. But for SKYLARK, I can actually point to a single moment that inspired the idea for the world, which then led to everything else. (Read more…)
Ask a Question (#3): How did you come up with Nix’s character?
Apr 15, 2013
This question deals with a character in SKYLARK–there are some mild spoilerish parts in this answer! Nothing major gets revealed, but if you’re as anti-spoiler as I am and you haven’t read SKYLARK, be warned!
Carolina S. asked, “Nix is positively my favorite character! How did you come up with him?”
It’s funny–Nix is genderless, but almost everyone uses a gendered pronoun when they talk about the character, because we’re not used to saying “it” to describe sentient, animate creatures. More people seem to call it a “him,” but I’ve definitely come across plenty of people who call Nix a “her!”
For those who aren’t familiar with SKYLARK, Nix is a pixie–which, in Lark’s world, is the name for little mechanical insect-like creatures that the Institute uses to spy on its citizens. When Lark escapes, Nix tracks her, and after she incapacitates it, it’s forced to become her reluctant ally.
Nix started out as sheer necessity. As I was writing the first draft of SKYLARK (which was then called THE IRON WOOD, but that’s another story) I was just ripping along at a great pace until Lark escaped the city and was out in the wilderness. Completely alone. I realized she had no one to talk to and no one to interact with, and while there are a lot of amazing books out there which handle this situation beautifully, it wasn’t actually what I was going for. So I decided she needed a companion (aside from Oren, who she meets later). (Read more…)
Ask a Question (#2): What was the process behind naming SKYLARK?
Apr 12, 2013
Amie Kaufman and I are running a MASSIVE giveaway with swag and ARCs from over twenty YA authors in order to kick off our brand new joint newsletter. Be sure to go check it out!
Katelyn L. asked, “What was the process behind naming SKYLARK?”
The original title of SKYLARK was THE IRON WOOD. That was the title I’d called it from the very beginning. I don’t outline, but I do usually have a pretty good idea of where a story is headed, and I knew where Lark was going when she escaped. So that was the title of the manuscript when I queried and signed with my agent, and that was also the title under which the book sold.
Ask A Question (#1): Why become an author?
Apr 05, 2013
Your questions are starting to come in, and I decided to kick this new feature off by choosing a question about why I do what I do!
Lexie F. asked, “What made you want to become an author?”
Reading was probably the single most significant part of my childhood and teenage years. Books were my best friends and my greatest love, and I never went anywhere without them. I could never get enough words and stories and characters. Being completely and utterly absorbed by a book remains one of the most rewarding and satisfying experiences I can think of. How can I not want to give that in return to kids today?
I love writing, but the drive to do it professionally comes from the desire to share these stories and worlds with kids today the way the authors of my childhood did with me. I want to form those same bonds across time and space, and if I can make even one reader get lost in my books, I’ll have done my job.
Do you have a question you’d like me to answer about books, publishing, or anything else? Ask it here, and enter my monthly drawing to win a prize pack of signed swag!
To see more questions I’ve answered, click here.
FAQ: How do you make yourself write so much and not get distracted?
Jan 01, 2012
This question comes most recently from a school visit, but I get variations on it a lot. (“Isn’t it hard to make yourself work when there’s no one to make sure you’re doing it?”) It seems like an appropriate post for New Year’s Day, when everybody’s busy making resolutions and promises to themselves!
FAQ: Do I Need an MFA?
May 20, 2011
A question I see pop up a lot from aspiring writers has to do with creative writing MFA programs, and whether they’re a necessary or even recommended step toward getting published. Someone just asked me this question the other day, and after I rambled at the poor girl for a while I realized that it was a subject on which I have a lot to say.